Death in Saigon
Sir: As an American serving our country "in the hour of its greatest need," I am shocked and ashamed of our part in Viet Nam [Nov. 8].
I wonder if Kennedy will turn the French against De Gaulle, the Koreans against General Park and the Egyptians against Nasser if they refuse to bow to our way of thinking.
(SP5) RONALD B. RUISINGER
Fitzsimons General Hospital
Denver
Sir: I am rejoiceful about the overthrow of the Diem regime, as many are. However, as wrong as the Nhus might have been, they believed in their cause.
I extend my deepest sympathy to Mme. Nhu on the death of her husband and brother-in-law.
W. G. SEVRENS
Woburn, Mass.
Sir: The only possible good that might result from the overthrow of the brothers Nhu is the tendency toward future discouragement of governments ruled by coalitions of brothers. Let us hope so: '64 is drawing near.
_, ROBERT C. OPPEL JR.
Berkeley, Calif.
Sir: My deepest sympathy to Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu and her family. I wish to remind those who vilified her late husband and brother-in-law that they were perhaps far less guilty than those who set themselves up as their judges. Put them beside a Khrushchev, a Tito, or even a Chiang Kaishek, and they were like innocent lambs. May God grant them eternal rest!
GLORIA LIEU
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Sir: A small trickle of Christian Asian blood reaches across the Pacific all the way from Saigon to that oval room in the White House where Kennedy must now ponder the moral truth that he who wills an act is responsible not only for the act itself but also for all the unforeseen sequelae of that act.
Kennedy will never forget what his blunder brought about in South Viet Nam. Neither should we voters.
EMIL D. CRISCITIELLO
Mt. Vernon, N.Y.
Sir: The slogan used by Premier Diem--"Follow me if I advance! Kill me if I retreat! Revenge me if I die!"--is the literal translation of what Benito Mussolini said some 30 years ago.
But the old Duce's words, "Se avanzo seguitenii. Se indietreggio uccidetemi," showed a much greater Christian spirit because he omitted any reference to vendetta.
FABIO MARCOTULLI, M.D.
Los Angeles
> Some Fascist posters, signed by Mussolini, did in fact add the final phrase, "Se muoio, vendicatemi!"
Mussolini and Diem owe the slogan to its originator, the Royalist La Rochejaquelin, who shouted the same enjoinder--in French--to his Catholic followers during the Wars of the Vendee (1793), a vain counterrevolution against anticlerical republican revolutionaries.--ED.
On the Integrated Street Where You Live
Sir: Your statement [Nov. 8] that Negroes "have been shut out of My Fair Lady" is stupidly misleading. Pointing out that there are no Negroes in My Fair Lady is tantamount to complaining that there are no Hungarians in The Mikado.
In case you do not know, George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion, from which Fair Lady was derived, in 1911, and in the Wimpole Street-Ascot Park-Covent Garden London of that time one would hardly expect to find Negroes among the costermongers, buskers and toffs, and certainly not as a Henry Higgins-type phonetician.
CARL COMBS
Los Angeles
La Cucaracha Sir: I have just returned from Vallarta [Nov. 1]. It is a filthy, dirty little Mexican town. Its hotels are higher-priced than Acapulco's and the food worse. It has no beach worth a damn. Gringo Gulch is a dirty alleyway. Its inhabitants are the kind that are always running away from life. There is one decent hotel there. For half the price, you can stay on the Bay of Lobsters in Acapulco and get three good meals a day. No one who has been to Acapulco would consider Puerto Vallarta for a vacation.
LEE ROBERTS
Palm Springs, Calif.
Erhard's Germany
Sir: Your report on the new Bundeskanzler [Nov. 1] stresses German concern over a possible U.S. sellout of Germany to the Soviet Union. It seems appropriate to point out that in the past it was mostly Germany or Prussia that sold out its Western allies to Russia: Frederick II, General Yorck von Wartenburg, Bismarck, Rappallo and, cum grano sails, Hitler-Stalin.
MARTIN W. WILMOT, PH.D.
New York City
Sir: Judging by the physiognomy of West Germany's Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, one might feel that Mr. Annigoni should have been more humane, and let "the Fat One' read and smoke. Nevertheless, the picture has its merits, as does the artist.
SETH A. SCHWEITZER
Boston
Sir: In your otherwise excellent article on Germany, you describe a mythical young executive floating around in the restaurant-lounge of the "revolving" television tower at Stuttgart and giving only occasional thought to die Flucht. Obviously this is a case of Wohlstandsalkoholis-mus on his part, or a flight of fancy on yours, since that pie-in-the-sky eatery is as adamantly immobile as De Gaulle's views on NATO.
JAMES V. MCCONNELL
Professor of Psychology
The Worm Runner's Digest
Ann Arbor, Mich.
> TIME erred.--ED.
Where's the Party?
Sir: Thank you for indicating that the alleged sex scandal at Harvard [Nov. 8] involves nothing more than an accentuated version of the annual moral debate between administration and students.
You can imagine the effect that nationwide coverage of the issue has had at the college. So many undergraduates, feeling neglected, are searching out possible wild parties that they have heretofore neither heard of nor seen.
FREDERIC J. ARTWICK
Harvard College
Cambridge, Mass.
Sir-The behavior of Harvard students with Radcliffe (ugh!) girls (or any other girls, for that matter) is no one's business but their own. One should be free to partake of either intellectual pursuit or sexual intercourse, as one will, during free hours.
Here at M.I.T. Harvard's hours seem unduly restrictive. We are allowed women guests in our rooms for a total of 55 hours a week. Any attempt by the administration to investigate the activities of these hours, much less reduce the hours, would be a flagrant violation of student freedom.
The loss of virginity among college women is caused, not by seductive persuasion in some Harvard boudoir, but by the pressures of college and society. Their promiscuity is their business^ not Harvard's, and certainly not TIME'S.
LEONARD LEVIN
M.I.T.
Cambridge, Mass.
Vissi d'Arte
Sir: Your article about Felsenstein [Oct. 18], the operatic director in East Berlin, seemed to depict him as a dauntless and admirably dynamic personality.
But perhaps, for just a moment, you might consider how you would feel if you were the employee of a man like Felsenstein in the Communistic East.
How would you feel if such an employer threatened to end your career if you insisted on the terms of your contract? How would you feel if you were humiliated every day by having to read the newspapers to see what role you might sing next? How would you feel if your family were not permitted to attend your rehearsals, your friends insulted and forbidden to enter your dressing room after your performances, if you were threatened with physical abuse onstage? How would you feel if you were bullied and threatened in the name of art? Would you care about art?
JOAN WALL
Mezzo-Soprano
Deutsche Oper Berlin
Berlin-Charlottenburg
Hats on to Motherhood
Sir: You state [Nov. 1] that there are ten or eleven children in the average Bolivian family. Could it be the bowlers? About 80 years ago, the story goes, a salesman took bowler hats to La Paz but could not sell them. Playfully, he placed one on the head of an Indian woman and told her that if she wore it she would have many children. Agreeable, she soon gave birth to twins. That did it. Today every Indian woman in Bolivia wears a bowler or derby hat.
JAMES B. STEWART
American Ambassador, Retired
Denver
Fruitful Training
Sir: "Conning the Professor" [Nov. 1] is the amusing, and terrifying, end result of the philosophy of life known as apple polishing. Students are in for more when they leave college.
The modern corporation psychologist tells employees that the most important thing they have to do is get along with their fellow employees and bosses.
Carrying put this philosophy results in a relationship of sham, hypocrisy, even outright lying, with never a possibility for true friendship, honesty or rugged individualism. Beware the man who speaks what he thinks!
(MRS.) JEANNE HYDE LISLE
Waterford, Conn.
Sir: Jonathan Swift perhaps anticipated by 200 years TIME'S exposure [Nov. 1] of classroom con men (and women) when he wrote in Cadenus and Vanessa,
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
JAMES R. KING
Pullman, Wash.
Lady Tackles?
Sir: In answer to Kathleen DeVoto's letter [Nov. 1] asking why can't women play football: they ain't built right, thank God! And if they did play, I can just see all of those penalties for illegal use of hands and offensive and defensive holding.
PHILIP QUALL
Everett, Wash.
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